


Little By Little

by chamel



Series: Impostors [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Confessions, Control Issues, Emotionally Repressed, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illya POV, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mission Fic, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Promiscuity, Repression, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27840028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: The problem comes when Illya enters the bar where they know the mark frequents and spots the telltale ring that they know the mark wears on a figure he decidedly does not expect. The broad shoulders and dark, wavy hair are bad enough, but when the man turns slightly Illya’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of his chiseled jaw and the small cleft in his chin.Briefly, he considers how amusing it might have been to watch Napoleon attempt to charm his own doppelgänger, but the thought quickly fades in the face of the reality of the situation. The reality is that nowhewill need to seduce someone who so resembles the man who has lodged himself so thoroughly between his ribs, and who is so completely, utterly off limits for reasons too myriad to list.(Illya finds an unexpected way of dealing with his unfortunate attraction to his partner, never mind that it is certain to cause far more problems than it solves)
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Gaby Teller, Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Series: Impostors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062662
Comments: 42
Kudos: 199





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic initially came out of a random discussion we had on the tmfu discord server ([invite link!](https://discord.gg/E93cSFC)) about all the various stories that feature Napoleon picking up Illya lookalikes, and I thought, what if Illya was the one picking up fake Napoleons, because he wasn't "allowed" to have his partner? At first it was a funny concept and then I realized no, actually, it was an incredibly angsty concept for a fic because of Illya's history.
> 
> I also didn't think I had it in me to write it and do justice to Illya's past and his trauma, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. Especially after I linked it in my head to the song "Impostors (Little by Little)" by The Fratellis, lyrics of which begin each chapter. Even so, this fic certainly would not have happened without the cheerleading and support of eavos and daniel_404, who so generously shared their Illya headcanons and knowledge of Soviet history, and who encouraged me to go for it.
> 
> This fic is complete with three chapters, and I'll be uploading them Wednesday-Sunday-Wednesday. I'm not going to make you wait too long between chapters with the angst fest this turned out to be.

_You wear your mask, I'll wear mine_  
_They don’t come cheap but they fit just fine_  
_We can pretend that our fates are entwined_  
_The beautiful lies, the beautiful kind_

The first time it happens, it is an accident.

Illya isn’t even meant to be the one sent in for this mission, but Napoleon had come down with a cold last minute, and they don’t have a lot of other options. The details they have on the mark are sketchy, but one thing they definitely know are his so-called _predilections_. Despite their lack of intelligence, the op should be an easy one; all they need to do is identify the man and hopefully flesh out his role in a criminal organization they’ve been tailing for months.

There is very little risk in the mission, which is what makes Napoleon’s stubbornness about the change so frustrating.

“I can still do it,” he insists. “I feel fine.” Never mind that his eyes are slightly bloodshot, there is a faint trace of red under his nose where he’s been blowing it too frequently, and his voice is rough from the coughing. But sure, he’s fine.

Illya rolls his eyes as he adjusts his tie, glancing at Napoleon in the mirror. “You are not seducing anyone in your current condition,” he says dryly. “The mark won’t want to come within two meters of you.”

“I’ll have you know that I once seduced a woman in Havana while I had the flu,” Napoleon says with more than a little boastfulness. “A little cold is nothing. I’m more than capable of being irresistible even while deathly ill, Peril.”

Illya knows this only too well, which is a problem all on its own that he’d rather not consider right now. That doesn’t mean he’s letting Napoleon work the job.

“It is unnecessary. I am also capable of… _completing_ these types of missions. Or do you doubt my skills as an agent?” It comes out more combative than confident, and Illya clenches his jaw as he fastens his cufflinks. Solo has a way of doing this to him seemingly without trying, of riling him up and getting under his skin, like an itch he can’t scratch.

Right now, though, he’s giving Illya a look he can’t interpret, his eyes guarded. His gaze is uncomfortably evaluating, like he can read the experience—or lack thereof—written right on Illya’s body. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m unfamiliar with your skillset in this area, Peril,” he says eventually in an excessively obsequious tone. “Your file had very little to say on the matter.”

The reason for this omission is entirely down to Illya’s considerable proficiency as a spy, as a matter of fact. Well, that and his ability to completely bury any trace of his deviancy for the past ten years. He doesn’t dare say any of this, of course. Instead, he hardens his expression, and growls, “I will do it.”

Napoleon doesn’t get the chance to respond before Gaby sweeps into the room. Her gaze lands on the American, dressed in a suit and clearly expecting to go out, and she frowns at him. “Solo, you should be resting.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Napoleon sighs, eminently frustrated, but he lets himself be pushed backwards onto the couch by the small German. For not the first time, Illya thanks a god he doesn’t believe in for her. Napoleon might not listen to him, but by now he knows better than to challenge their third partner.

“You are not,” she says, matter-of-factly. “You are going to stay here while and be good while we go to the bar—”

“You will both stay,” Illya interrupts, ignoring the look of incredulity that Gaby gives him. “I don’t need backup on so simple a mission, and anyway the bar is close. If anything goes wrong, I will trigger the signal and you can be there in a few minutes.”

“Illya—”

“I will be all right, Chop Shop,” he says gently as she walks with him toward the door. “Besides, you need to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Napoleon yells from the couch. It’s probably true. Now that he’s more or less given up the pretense of being unaffected by his illness he’s begun slumping into the cushions, and it looks like he won’t be awake for long.

Illya turns back to Gaby and gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I promise, I will let you know if things get dicey. Don’t worry about me.”

“I will,” she says, but he can tell from her expression that she’s resigned herself to staying behind. “I’d tell you not to do anything Solo wouldn’t do, but you might be better off not doing anything he _would_ do.”

“There’s a narrow grey area,” Illya suggests, letting the corners of his mouth twitch up into a small smile.

“Very narrow,” she agrees.

* * *

The problem, such as it is, does not really come from the fact that he has to seduce a man. It _should_ be a problem—as Napoleon so helpfully pointed out, Illya should not be ok with doing such a thing, at least as far as the various intelligence agencies know—but it isn’t. In any case, Illya isn’t intending for things to go very far; despite Napoleon’s skepticism, he’s confident in his ability to be charming enough to wheedle the necessary details out of the man without losing control of the situation.

No, the problem comes when Illya enters the bar where they know the mark frequents and spots the telltale ring that they know the mark wears on a figure he decidedly does not expect. The broad shoulders and dark, wavy hair are bad enough, but when the man turns slightly Illya’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of his chiseled jaw and the small cleft in his chin.

Briefly, he considers how amusing it might have been to watch Napoleon attempt to charm his own doppelgänger, but the thought quickly fades in the face of the reality of the situation. The reality is that now _he_ will need to seduce someone who so resembles the man who has lodged himself so thoroughly between his ribs, and who is so completely, utterly off limits for reasons too myriad to list.

It’s not something he can think about right now. Right now, he has work to do.

Illya sets himself up at the bar to observe the mark for a little while, watching how he interacts with other patrons. He appears to be alone tonight, which is promising, and flirts with a few people without seeming to find what he is looking for. Eventually, Illya’s patience pays off, and the mark steps up to the bar next to him to flag down the bartender. Illya shifts his posture, subtly adjusting the line of his shoulders to look more open and inviting, and turns slightly toward the man next to him.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Illya asks easily, letting his jacket fall open as he leans on the bar.

The mark smiles as he glances over at Illya, and up close the resemblance is less striking. His eyes are all wrong, for one thing, a warm golden brown that might be arresting if they were set in any other face. To Illya at least, they’re just disconcerting, though he makes sure not to let that show.

“Absolutely,” the mark practically purrs, letting his gaze drag over Illya’s body appreciatively.

The mark—Adam Martinez, Illya finds out—is surprisingly forthcoming with details about his life and business, especially once he gets quite a few drinks into him courtesy of UNCLE’s bankroll. Illya can’t detect any subterfuge in the way he talks about his deals with the criminal organization they’re investigating, so much so that Illya doesn’t think he actually knows what he’s involved in. In the end, he turns out to be a dead end; they’ll keep his name on their monitoring list, but they’ll probably never even run into him again.

Which is undoubtedly a good thing, because Illya also finds out that Adam Martinez is _very_ interested in him. Normally, having secured the information they were after, Illya would extract himself from the situation and head back to the hotel, and this is exactly his plan when he slips out to go to the bathroom. But then, for reasons he does not understand and does not really want to understand, Illya returns to where Martinez is still standing at the bar.

It’s late, and Gaby will be waiting for him, but she also won’t be surprised if he doesn’t show for a few more hours. Martinez seems harmless enough, and anyway getting a chance to check out his hotel room is just good spycraft. It definitely has nothing to do with the way that Martinez’s hands seem to soothe the restless itch under his skin when they brush along his shoulder or trail teasingly up the outside of his thigh. It certainly isn’t because there is an insistent tug of desire in Illya’s gut that, for once, he doesn’t immediately bury.

Martinez doesn’t wait until they make it to the room; he boxes Illya against the wall in the elevator, capturing his mouth with a bruising kiss as he tugs Illya’s shirt out of his trousers and slides warm palms over his skin. The maneuver should set off alarm bells inside Illya, but at the same time Illya knows he could easily overpower Martinez if he needed to, so he just… lets it happen. Lets the other man take what he wants, lets him touch in a way that Illya hasn’t let anyone in more than a decade.

He doesn’t stop to think. Doesn’t question what he’s doing when Martinez pushes him into the room and strips him bare. Doesn’t even stop to reevaluate the situation when Martinez leans in and tells him he’s going to need Illya to fuck him _right now_. It is only when Martinez is pinned underneath him, when Illya sees his curling dark hair and the square line of his jaw, and when he looks at the broad expanse of his back and he finds himself momentarily expecting to see a particular scar on his shoulder that certainly does not belong to Martinez, that he realizes what he’s doing.

This, right here. This is most definitely the problem.

* * *

Gaby is, of course, waiting for him when he gets back to the hotel. Returning this late leaves little doubt as to what he’s been up to, as do the mouth-shaped bruises low on his neck that he knows his button-down shirt does not cover. There’s nothing judgmental or disapproving in her gaze—of course there isn’t, it’s not as if she doesn’t understand what the job sometimes asks of them—but that only serves to make the flush of shame flame hotter inside him. She thinks that he did this because he had to, because it was the mission. She could not be more wrong; Illya completed the mission well before he ever left the bar.

He doesn’t know if its better or worse that she also misinterprets his shame, at least in part.

“We can keep it out of the mission report,” she says quietly, taking one of his hands in both of hers he sits down on the couch next to her. “Nothing will go on your file.”

Illya looks at her sharply. “What did Solo tell you?”

“Nothing,” she answers quickly, her eyes going slightly wide. “Just that your file was suspiciously devoid on the subject, and that you would want to keep it that way.”

That, at least, is true. Illya nods, staring at the floor, and silence settles over the room again, broken only by the soft sound of snoring coming from Solo’s room. The door is cracked open, and Illya knows that Napoleon probably intended to wake up when he returned, but the cold got the better of him. Thank god. Illya is sure he could not bear his partner’s scrutiny right now.

Gaby’s is bad enough; she’s still looking at him, concerned and caring, and he kind of wants to yank his hand away and storm off to his room, but that will only cause more trouble. “Illya, are you ok?” she asks.

“Yes,” he lies, obviously, through clenched teeth. She doesn’t press him, though.

“Did you get the information?”

At that he sighs and leans back against the couch, grateful for the change in topic even if the mission was a bust, in the end. “Adam Martinez. Took over his father’s operations recently,” Illya says automatically, his voice flat. “He’s too peripheral, doesn’t know anything about who he’s dealing with. I’m not sure even his father did.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, withdraws a thin leather book, and tosses it on the table. “Got his contact list, but I doubt anything will pan out.”

“Oh,” Gaby replies, staring at the book. He can hear the unspoken words; it was a lot of trouble for such little payout. At least none of them got injured.

“Let’s go to bed, Chop Shop,” Illya murmurs. “There will be a new mission tomorrow.”

* * *

The possibility of it happening again doesn’t even remotely occur to Illya. Of course it would be a one-time thing. Under what conceivable circumstances would he even find someone? He knows nothing about that world, has never wanted to know anything about that world. Not to mention that he knows it would be a horrible, terrible idea. For weeks, life returns to something like normal. The restless itch continues to thrum beneath his skin, the tightness in his chest continues its dull ache, and Illya continues to do his best to ignore them.

And then they get an assignment that… _changes_ things.

Their mark is a German expat living in Brussels with a penchant for chemical weapons and, as it turns out, a taste for beautiful Belgian men. The latter fact isn’t part of their original profile, but it becomes obvious when they tail him to a very particular type of club one night. That it is a private establishment is immediately apparent, and the nature of their clientele can be quite easily discerned when not a single woman enters nor leaves in the space of half an hour. When they’re satisfied that the mark isn’t coming back out any time soon, Illya and Napoleon leave Gaby to watch the door and make their approach.

“Invitation?” the bouncer asks them, eyeing the pair somewhat skeptically.

“Ah, I’m afraid we’ve mislaid ours,” Napoleon says, patting his jacket pocket for effect. They hadn’t seen anyone provide an invitation at the door, but perhaps all the previous entrants were known to the bouncer.

“Then you’ll have to leave,” the bouncer tells them. “No one gets in without an invitation from a current member.”

Napoleon grins his widest, most ingratiating grin. “Oh, that is a shame. Are you quite sure there’s no way? You see, we’re only in the city for the weekend and some of our friends told us that this was _the_ club to visit. Up there with Le Fiacre, they said.” He looks encouragingly up at Illya, as if seeking confirmation of this, so Illya nods and does his best to look like he knows what the hell Napoleon is talking about.

“We are much more exclusive than Le Fiacre,” the bouncer sniffs, but the name seems to shift something in his demeanor. “We sometimes make exceptions for couples, on a limited basis. You _are_ together…?”  
  
Illya has very little warning of—and no time to mentally prepare for—Napoleon quite suddenly leaning into his side like an overly friendly cat. One of his hands slides around Illya’s waist to splay possessively over his hip, and Illya knows _why_ he’s doing it, but does he really need to lay it on so thick? The heat of Napoleon’s palm sears through his clothing, stirring up such a terrible longing inside him that he can hardly breathe.

“Oh, yes,” Napoleon effuses, “we’re quite devoted to each other, aren’t we, darling?” He punctuates this by stomping on Illya’s foot, which honestly is both terribly unsubtle and hardly necessary.

Illya places his hand over Napoleon’s, a signal of affection for the bouncer’s benefit, and wraps a few fingers around his wrist with hard enough pressure to convey a warning for Napoleon's. He will play this game—the game that is, admittedly, necessary for furthering the mission—but he cannot afford to let it go too far. Cannot afford to let Napoleon find out what will happen if he gets too _handsy_ , because Illya has a suspicion that he will, if given the leeway.

Fortunately once they are finally admitted to the club Napoleon peels away from him, flirting shamelessly with anyone and everyone he can corner. At least, Illya tries to feel like it’s fortunate, instead of feeling the sick twist of jealousy curling in his gut. Napoleon is a master of gathering intel via flirting, and Illya knows he is just doing his job, but it’s also obvious how much he’s enjoying himself. For his part, Illya leans against the bar, nursing a drink, and watches the mark work the room without appearing to do so.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” intones a smooth voice to his right.

Illya had seen the man approach but hadn’t paid him much attention, and he’s briefly taken aback when he actually looks at him. He is nearly as tall as Illya, with gently curling brown hair, stunning blue-green eyes, and high, chiseled cheekbones. His jaw isn’t quite square and his chin is undimpled, but it’s enough. Illya doesn’t immediately close himself off, turns toward the other man and smiles. After all, if Napoleon can flirt information out of random people, Illya should be able to just as easily. _Should_ being the operative word here.

“Just visiting Brussels,” Illya tells him. “Heard of this place and thought we’d stop in.”

The man’s smile widens just a bit in response. “Forgive me for saying this, but this doesn’t really seem like your scene.”

Illya chuckles a bit at that, then drops his eyes for a second and bites the edge of his lower lip, watching as the other man’s gaze follows the movement. He may not have a ton of experience with flirting, but he’s certainly watched Napoleon at work often enough at this point. It would be embarrassing if he _hadn’t_ picked anything up.

“Not so much,” he confirms with a shrug.

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

The man looks pointedly across the room to where Napoleon is now flirting rather _aggressively_ with the mark, and Illya curses internally for getting distracted. What if the mark had made his partner while he hadn’t been watching? What if Illya had lost track of them? But of course, Napoleon looks fine.

“Our relationship is… complicated,” Illya says truthfully. Let the other man make of that what he will.

“I see,” the man says in a way that makes Illya wonder what, exactly, he _sees_. “Well, he should be careful with that guy. Though it looks like he can take care of himself.”  
  
Illya lets a small smirk turn up the corner of his mouth. “He can. But why do you say ‘be careful’?”

“Oh, I’ve heard stories, but I don’t have any personal experience with him. He’s here all the time, takes someone different home every night. A bit of a sadist, and not in the fun way. Or the strictly consensual way. _Definitely_ don’t drink anything he gives you.”

A barely-suppressed shudder trails down Illya’s spine as he frowns across the room. He knows Napoleon wouldn’t be stupid enough to drink anything from the mark, especially from a chemist, but the idea is still horrifying. As he’s watching, Napoleon glances over toward him and looks momentarily surprised to see that Illya isn’t alone, but he quickly covers it. Then his face contorts into a subtle yet complicated expression that Illya immediately knows means that he does, in fact, intend to follow the mark out of the club tonight.

It’s not surprising—they both knew that this could be a potential outcome the moment the club came into play—but it doesn’t make Illya like it any more. Particularly after what he just learned. He wants to go warn Napoleon, but at the same time he knows that doing so would almost certainly spook the mark. He settles on frowning disapprovingly, which only succeeds in getting Napoleon to send him a jaunty wink.

“Do you need to go…?” the man next to him asks, brow furrowing as he watches the interaction.

He does, and he doesn’t. Under most circumstances he would leave Napoleon to the seduction and check the trackers in his shoes if he didn’t show in a few hours, but most circumstances don’t involve sadistic chemists. At the same time, Napoleon tends to get prickly if he thinks Illya doesn’t trust him on what should be a simple seduction operation. He watches Napoleon follow the mark toward the door and tries not to grind his teeth.

“No,” Illya forces himself to say. “As you say, he can take care of himself.” He hopes, desperately, that it will be true in this case as well. At least Gaby will see them leave, and that is better than nothing.

“In that case, I don’t suppose I could tempt you to another drink? Or perhaps something more? My apartment is nearby,” the man suggests, grinning at him. Illya realizes that they haven’t even exchanged names and this guy is propositioning him…and he _is_ actually tempted.

Fuck. What is wrong with him?

“I… can’t,” Illya answers, with more reluctance than he means to let slip into his voice.

“I get it,” the man says, “but if you change your mind…” He grabs a napkin and a pen off the bar and scribbles something on it, then reaches forward and tucks it into Illya’s front pants pocket with a wink. “Like I said. Nearby.”

Later, when he is sitting in the living room of their shared hotel suite, watching the tracker in Napoleon’s shoe blink on the monitor from a couple of miles away, he pulls the napkin out and looks at it. _Nico_ , it says, with an address around the corner printed underneath.

“What’s that?” Gaby asks as she walks out of her bedroom and up behind the couch.

Illya crumples the napkin in his hand and shoves it down into the couch cushions. “Nothing.”

There’s no reason for him to hide it, the note itself doesn’t mean anything, and yet he does so anyway. Gaby narrows her eyes at him suspiciously but doesn’t pry, just drops down on the couch by his side and kicks her feet up on the coffee table next to the monitor.

“He’s on the move,” she announces, and sure enough, when Illya looks back he sees the steady blip of the tracker heading back toward the hotel. A thread of tension unwinds itself from within him; Gaby must sense it, because she bumps her shoulder up against his and offers him a gentle smile.

It further eases when Napoleon returns looking a little rumpled, but no worse for the wear. Perhaps the rumors of their mark’s preferences were exaggerated, or perhaps Napoleon was able to get what he needed without having to let things go too far. The latter hope is fairly dashed when Napoleon bends down to drop a notebook on the table and his sleeve pulls back just enough to reveal an angry red welt circling his wrist. Illya can’t help his frown at the sight, which of course Napoleon notices.

“Relax, Peril,” he says, which has the exact opposite effect. His lips curl into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Our man was a bit of a tiger, but the rumors of his cruelty were exaggerated.”

“You knew, and you still went with him,” Illya grits out.

Napoleon just shrugs, yanking the knot of his tie out as he moves toward his bedroom. “It’s the job, Peril. The information in that notebook was worth the risk. And anyway, it wasn’t the best lay I’ve had, but not the worst.”

It is the flippancy with which he says this that digs under Illya’s skin. Illya _knows_ it is the job. He _knows_ it is (sometimes) worth the risk. But that does not stop the image of Napoleon, bound and vulnerable, from playing in his head like a terrible movie.

(There is another issue that he likes to think of even less: that at this point, he also knows that Napoleon’s flippancy after missions like this is directly proportional to his discomfort. That when Napoleon comes back and pretends that nothing is bothering him, it is the exact moment that he is most bothered. Illya hates that he knows this, but even more, he hates that he can do nothing about it.)

“I need a bath, and then I’m going to sleep until noon tomorrow,” Napoleon announces, then kicks the door of his room closed without waiting for an answer.

Gaby follows his lead a short time later, leaving Illya still sitting on the couch. He knows that if he tries to sleep he’ll just stare at the ceiling for hours; something about this night—about what he imagines Napoleon doing with the mark, about the irrational jealousy of watching Napoleon flirting that still lingers with him, even now—has set his nerves so on edge that he can barely sit still.

He decides he’s going for a walk and ends up, perhaps unsurprisingly, standing outside the address written on the napkin that is still wedged in between the cushions of the couch. This is stupid. He knows it’s stupid. and yet he also can’t convince himself why it’s wrong. His partner’s liberal, western attitudes must be insinuating themselves into him more than he realized.

The restless urge to feel something other than worry and irritation and helpless frustration thrums within him, and, somewhat unfortunately, he knows now what can make it ease, if only temporarily. He steps up to the door, rings the bell, and lets himself be drawn inside by a beautiful man with blue-green eyes and a welcoming smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for so much for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts; your comments mean so much to me and really make my day when I receive them. ❤️


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're getting some introspection/backstory to kick this chapter off, and thanks are due again to eavos and daniel_404 for all the Illya discussions, and for reading through the first section for me. I've included a bit more info about some of Illya's history in the end notes, for those interested.

_I can be the one that you just can't shake_   
_’Til you swear that your eyes go blind_   
_We can disappear ’til the sun burns a hole_   
_In the life that we left behind_

He should have known Napoleon Solo would be his downfall.

From that moment in the bathroom when he’d been seconds from killing the American, from that moment in the restaurant when he’d flipped a table and stormed out, and certainly from that moment when he’d destroyed his hotel room, letting the rage overtake him like it had not since he was much younger. It was immediately obvious that Napoleon Solo seemed to have been designed especially to shred all of the self-control that Illya had meticulously constructed over the years. That he would continue to do so throughout their partnership should have been expected.

He should have known that Napoleon Solo would be the one to wedge himself under his skin, to pierce through the impenetrable armor around his heart like a harpoon, the barbs making him impossible to remove without rending great, bloody holes in his flesh.

He should have known because there had been another like Napoleon, long ago. Before the KGB, before the self-control that had been beaten into him, there had been a boy that made his blood run hot and his hands feel cold as ice with nerves. He had met Alexei when he’d returned from his forced residence at the orphanage, when his mother finally was able to regain custody of him. The other boy had been kind when so many others were cruel, and before too long their fast friendship bloomed into something more. What he felt when he was with Alexei was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, and Illya fell hard and fast. They started meeting in abandoned buildings and remote locales, stealing moments of pleasure in a life that offered so little.

Illya and Alexei were old enough to know that what they were doing was wrong. Illegal, deviant behavior that could get them sent to a gulag, or worse. But they were also young and reckless enough not to stop: that age where you feel invincible, despite the fact that you should know better. Illya, in particular, should have known better, but the brutal years at the orphanage had only stoked the fire of the trauma of his father’s arrest, and the fragments of his shattered psyche that he had emerged with only made him more rash and foolhardy.

During those years, his emotions lived close to the surface. The lingering anxiety from his years at the orphanage, the defensive anger at any perceived slight on his family, even his forbidden love for Alexei: it was all there, plain as day, ready to boil out into the world at the slightest provocation. The issues only magnified as he grew, tall and strong, and the impotent tantrums of a child became the dangerous rages of a young man. He can see, now, how much his mother protected him from punishment after the fights—with bribes, or other favors he never let himself consider—until he picked a fight she couldn’t protect him from.

Illya hadn’t known he was a high-ranking KGB official at the time; how could he? All he knew was that any time the man visited, Illya spent the next day putting iodine on his mother’s bruises. So when he returned to their apartment one day to find this man treating his mother like a servant in their own home, Illya had lashed out, and this time he ended up ensnared like a wolf in a hunter’s trap. The official had given him a choice that was no choice at all, and only a few months later Illya found himself thrown into the brutal training program that would shape his life for many years to come.

The KGB taught him control. Control over the rages, control over the passions, control over the _emotions_ , and he became what others snidely joked he was. A robot. A killing machine. Barely human. What did it matter, anyway? He served his country, and found satisfaction in being the best. He was able to run mission after mission without fatiguing, because all the mental and physical energy he had he poured into his job. No family or friends to worry about, or to worry about him. It was better that way. Simple. Uncomplicated. He would not say that he was _happy_ , but not everyone gets to be happy. Sometimes being satisfied is enough.

Until it is not.

He sometimes wonders if the KGB knew what they were doing when they sent him to Berlin. How could they? How could they possibly know that the American and the German would be the ones that could unravel all that careful training? It would have been inconceivable. His “loan” to UNCLE following that mission could not have been an accident, though. The KGB do not simply loan their top agents to western intelligence organizations. No, they must have seen what happened during that mission, seen what Illya himself had not understood at the time, and knew even then that he was broken.

There could be no going back, now. Not to his old, solitary life, not to the KGB’s full trust, and not to the careful control over his emotions and impulses that he worked so hard for. The most terrifying part, though, is not that these things are all true, but how little he seems to care anymore.

* * *

After Brussels, things start to get out of hand. Turns out that it’s not so hard to sneak out in the middle of the night while his partners are asleep, or to take the moments where all of them go off to do their own things and spend them on other pursuits besides playing chess by himself. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that seeking out these releases is becoming a bit of an addiction. It also doesn’t take long for Gaby to catch on.

Whether he means to be or not, Illya isn’t as careful around her as he is around Napoleon, and so when he comes back late one night, not that long after Brussels, to their hotel suite and finds her waiting for him, it is hardly a surprise. She had ostensibly gone to bed hours ago, but clearly that had been a feint, because now she’s sitting on the couch again and reading in the light of a single lamp. There is a square of white on the coffee table in front of her; a napkin, he realizes as he gets closer, that had been crumpled up and then pressed smooth again.

She doesn’t look up at him, and he doesn’t say anything, just takes a seat in the chair next to her and stares down at the incriminating evidence laid out in front of him. Eventually, she seems to reach the end of the chapter, because she carefully replaces the bookmark and closes the book, then sets it on the table next to the napkin.

“Who’s Nico?”

“No one,” Illya answers, but he can see immediately that this will not be a satisfactory answer, and revises. “Just someone I met at the club.”

“The club we found in Brussels?” she asks, even though she already knows. The name of it is right there, after all, embossed on the napkin.

Illya swallows and wishes he’d gotten a drink before he came to sit down. “Yes.”

“And you went out again that night.”

“Yes.”

Gaby takes a deep breath, still staring at him with a measured expression, then leans forward and puts a gentle hand on his knee. “You know you don’t have to hide this from us, right?”

“It’s not—” he starts, but the words fail him. There is too much he cannot say, and too much that he wants to anyway, just to say it to someone. But in the end he says nothing, really. “It’s better if no one knows. Safer.”

“You know that isn’t true,” she tells him. “What if something were to go wrong?”

Illya shakes his head and stares down at the threadbare hotel carpet. “I can handle myself.”  
  
“Obviously,” Gaby says dryly. “But you are not invincible.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m just saying, you don’t have to sneak around,” she sighs. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

_You would not say that if you knew_ , he thinks. If she knew what they all had in common. If she knew about the insufferable itch that drove him to seek them out, and how it only seems to have gotten worse since he started.

“Solo cannot know,” is what he manages to say instead.

Gaby frowns, clearly frustrated that he is seemingly not listening to her. “Illya, I really think—”

“Please, Gaby,” he interrupts, because he really doesn’t want to hear about how understanding Napoleon will be. Napoleon’s understanding is the very last thing he wants. “You cannot tell him. Please, for me.”

She sits back in her seat then, staring at him, evaluating, as she crosses her arms in front of her. “I won’t,” she promises, “but you should.” Illya can only shake his head, and she tuts at him. “Things like this don’t stay a secret forever, not from your _partners_. I don’t care how careful you are. And the longer it goes on, the worse it’s going to go when he finds out you’ve been lying to him all this time.”

She is right, of course. He is juggling a live grenade, and one day it’s going to blow up in his face. His own scars are a foregone conclusion; all he can hope for is that neither of his partners will get caught by the shrapnel.

* * *

Illya regularly tells himself that This One Will Be The Last One. This situation is untenable, and he needs to stop. As always, though, his self-control is easily broken when it comes to Napoleon Solo. The pattern becomes almost cyclical: Napoleon takes a lover, and a day or so later, Illya can’t seem to help but do the same. He knows Gaby notices this, as well, but she doesn’t say anything.

Once, Napoleon is laid up for nearly a month with a broken ankle, and perhaps against his better judgement, Illya plays nursemaid whenever he’s not off on one of the short missions that Waverly sends him and Gaby on. For the first time in a long time, the restless itch beneath his skin ebbs away in the quiet, almost distressingly domestic moments he and Napoleon share. It’s not all that he wants—not anywhere near it—but it is enough. He thinks he is finally free of the impulse, has finally come to some kind of equilibrium.

Then one day he comes back from a mission and finds Napoleon more mobile than when he’d left. He’s wearing his robe over pajama pants when Illya comes by his apartment, and the neck of it splits low to reveal several fresh, mouth-shaped bruises over his collar bone and chest. Napoleon notices Illya’s disapproving frown at once and merely waggles his eyebrows.

“What? You didn’t expect me to stay cooped up in here forever, did you, Peril?”

No, Illya supposes, he did not.

The cycle starts again.

* * *

It all comes crashing down around him in Athens.

The mission—intercepting a shipment of high-tech weapons before they can be bought up and put on a boat in Pireas—is a complete and utter mess. Somehow the weapons dealers get tipped off to the raid at the transfer point in the Greek countryside, and Napoleon, who’d just managed to insert himself into the team transporting the weapons, ends up with six inch knife laceration slashing across his ribs in the ensuing scuffle. The wound turns out to be mostly superficial, but in the field it looks devastating while Napoleon is bleeding everywhere, rapidly losing enough blood to send him into shock. Illya spends the too-long ride back to a hospital Athens with Napoleon collapsed against his chest, clutching his jacket to Napoleon’s side and trying not to think about the sensation of blood seeping through his own shirt and pants, drying thick and sticky against his skin.

It’s late when they get back to the hotel from the hospital. Illya is still covered in Napoleon’s blood, and the restless longing that itches beneath his skin has combined with the lingering terror of near loss so as to be completely unbearable. He knows he should stay in, he knows no good will come of seeking someone out tonight of all nights, but as he stands in the shower, watching red streaks swirling on white porcelain, he also knows he will not be able to rest until he does something to drown out the dull, throbbing ache within his chest.

It is not difficult to find someone with Napoleon’s coloration in Greece, and Illya is spoiled for choices. At a very particular type of club, buried in a hidden alley in the Plaka, he finds perhaps the closest match yet—a man named Dmitri with curly black hair and startlingly blue eyes—and that is perhaps his first mistake. To this point he has purposefully avoided choosing partners that were too overtly identical, pretending that this gave him some semblance of control over his actions. Whenever he got too close, he regretted it, like the time he had picked up an American in London and accidentally called him Cowboy in the throes of passion. Not that the other man had minded—he’d been highly amused, in fact—but the slip had haunted Illya for days.

But tonight, this night where he can still feel Napoleon’s blood on his hands, he gives over to the impulse. Dmitri is younger and a bit thinner, but when Illya presses him up against the wall in the club and slides his hand under the other man’s shirt to find smooth, unmarked skin stretched tight over his ribs, he feels something unclench in his chest, if only for a moment.

His second mistake, after they stretch the limits of decency even in a club like that, is bringing Dmitri back to his hotel room. Gaby and Napoleon are on different floors than him, spread out in an attempt to maintain separate covers, so it should be no problem to sneak the other man in and out. He’s done it before under similar circumstances, after all. Even Dmitri’s laughter as he tries to steal kisses on their way down the hall doesn’t perturb him. That is, until they reach the door to Illya’s room and find it unlocked.

Illya has the pistol out of his ankle holster in seconds, and he doesn’t miss the way Dmitri’s eyes widen in shock. His first thought is that the weapons dealers caught up to them again, somehow tracked them back to the hotel. The impulse to check Gaby and Napoleon’s rooms is strong, but it’s possible he’s the only one that has been made, and doing that will just bring their adversaries to his partners. No, he needs to clear his own room first, and now he has a civilian to worry about, too. Stupid, stupid. Illya can’t send him away, and he can’t leave him in the hall. He can’t risk Dmitri getting picked up by the weapons dealers for his nebulous association with Illya, so he does the only thing he can do and pulls the other man into the room with him when he goes.

The hotel room is pitch black save for the pale light of the streetlamps that filters in through the windows. A lone figure sits in a chair next to the desk, and even though there are no real identifying markers visible on his silhouette, there is no doubt in Illya’s mind as to the identity of his visitor. Bitter bile rises in his throat as he slowly lowers his gun.

“You’re getting sloppy, Peril,” the figure says, still enshrouded in the darkness. A second later, he flicks on the lamp next to him on the desk. “It’s rather unbecoming of an agent of your caliber.”

Napoleon sits in the chair, facing the door, and the light from the lamp casts harsh shadows across his face, still drawn and wan from the earlier shock. His shirt hangs unbuttoned in front, revealing the wide strip of bandages wound around his ribcage, and Illya cannot help but wonder what it was that made Napoleon leave his room in such a state to break into Illya’s. He watches as Napoleon’s gaze glances over him to linger on the man standing behind him, and in the space of a split second a stunning array of emotions flit across his face—shock, realization, and hurt, chief among them. The painkillers clearly must be getting to him, because Napoleon would never give so much away normally. But then his careful, implacable mask falls back into place, and Illya feels like he has been set adrift in a treacherous sea.

Illya drops his gun on the table by the door and glances back at where Dmitri still hovers uncertainly near the door. “Leave.”

“Oh, don’t send him away on account of me,” Napoleon jumps in, and there is something so cold and smooth in his voice that makes Illya’s skin crawl. “Far be it for me to begrudge any of us a little release after a rough mission.”

Napoleon’s eyes glitter like diamonds in the low light, hard and unyielding, and Illya feels his hands curl into fists involuntarily by his sides. He is penned in, trapped like a wild animal, and Napoleon knows the danger of that situation better than most. Illya can feel his partner watching his hands, waiting for the shaking, waiting for the loss of control, like it is his goal. It is tempting to give it to him.

Instead, he slowly turns away from his partner’s gaze and walks to the door, opening it for the young Greek man still regarding him with frightened eyes. “ _Syngnómi_. You have to go now.”

Dmitri says nothing, just nods and flees. The sound of the door closing behind him reverberates around the room before fading into a silence that neither of them seem interested in breaking. Illya cannot bring himself to turn around; Napoleon’s eviscerating gaze is hard enough to bear on his back.

“What are you doing here, Cowboy?”

“You know, I knew something was off,” Napoleon says instead of answering the question. He is doing his best at insouciance, but he can’t quite hide the steel in his tone. The dry, astringent bitterness. “But I have to admit I never expected this.”

_It is none of your business_ , Illya wants to say, finally turning to face him again. _You have no right_. He knows they are lies, though. It’s not like they don’t all still have their own secrets, but these become fewer and fewer with every passing month, and something like this was straining the limits.

“It is not what you think,” Illya says instead, like an idiot. Like continuing to pretend that it’s not obvious what is going on will get him anywhere.

“Oh, isn’t it? I guess I’m misinterpreting what you’re doing with these men,” Napoleon snaps. “A rousing game of chess, I suppose?”  
  
“That’s not—”

“Please tell me that Gaby at least knows what you’ve been doing, if not who you’ve been doing it with,” Napoleon says, exasperated, cutting off whatever protests Illya had been about to make.

Illya is quiet for a moment, weighing the option of tacitly admitting that Napoleon has, in fact, read the situation exactly right. Continuing to deny it is rapidly becoming an exercise in absurdity. “Yes,” he answers quietly, staring off across the room.

“Well, it’s good to know that you still trust one of us,” Napoleon says flippantly, and Illya’s eyes snap back to him. The set of his jaw and the lines etching his forehead clearly belie his tone; he is hurt, and he has every right to be.

Illya cannot hold back a flinch. “I trust you, Cowboy,” he murmurs weakly, knowing it is not enough.

“But not with this.”

Illya’s fists clench tighter, and he tries to focus on the sensation of his fingernails digging into his palms. “It’s not—,” he begins, his voice clipping off as he tries to find the words. “It was not a matter of trust. I could not tell you.”

Napoleon scoffs at this, shaking his head in disbelief. “Did you forget that I’m not one of your KGB pals? I’m the one who kept what happened with Martinez out of your file, for Christ’s sake! Not even Waverly knows.” He sighs heavily, and the look of frustration on his face softens. “Look, I understand better than anyone why you would want to keep it quiet, but that’s exactly the reason why you _could_ tell me.”

“No,” Illya says, screwing his eyes shut. Napoleon’s empathy is more devastating than his anger, especially because he does _not_ understand, not even a little. Napoleon is not the one who is so helplessly, dangerously in love with his partner. “You don’t understand,” he manages.

The chair squeaks as Napoleon rises. Illya can practically sense his approach, even with his eyes shut. He can feel his closeness like electricity crackling between them, can smell the sharpness of antiseptic and the lingering metallic tang of blood on him even at a distance. When he speaks again his voice is achingly gentle, and Illya _hates_ it. He does not deserve Napoleon’s compassion.

“So help me, Peril. Help me understand.”

“I can’t. I just— can’t,” he bites out with a short, sharp shake of his head.

Napoleon is quiet for a moment, evaluating. “Then we have a problem,” he says flatly as he moves past Illya to leave.

Illya knows that if he lets Napoleon leave right now, it means the end of their partnership. Maybe not right away, but sooner than later. And maybe the truth will also mean the end, but at least it will be the truth. He reaches out to grab Napoleon’s arm, halting his exit; his partner gives a little performative yank, but if he really wanted out of Illya’s grasp he could do it, even in his current state.

“The way they look,” Illya forces himself to say. Forces himself to look into Napoleon’s pained blue eyes. “It’s not— not _random_.”

Realization slowly dawns over Napoleon’s face, his eyes going impossibly wide. His pupils are already huge from sitting in the dim room, and Illya feels like he might just drown in their blackness. He can’t read anything besides shock in Napoleon’s expression, and to be honest he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to see the horror or disgust or pity or whatever else is going on in Napoleon’s head right now.

“How many have there been?” Napoleon whispers.  
  
Suddenly his proximity is unbearable. Close enough that Illya could lean in and kiss him in an instant, and wouldn’t that just be the perfect cap on all of this misery? He can almost imagine the slide of his lips and the heat of his mouth for a moment before the fantasy threatens to choke him. Illya drops his arm and turns away, striding across the room as he scrubs his hands over his face. “I don’t know,” he says into his palms, and it’s nearly inaudible to even him so he knows Napoleon did not hear the answer.

“How many, Peril? I mean are we talking a one or two, or a handful, or—”

“ _I don’t know!_ ” Illya bellows, wheeling back toward him.

He sees Napoleon’s gaze drop to his hand even before he realizes that it has started twitching. Illya tries to clench his fist against it, but it’s too late; he can feel the last thread of his control unwinding, too slippery by half as it slides through his fingers.

“Fuck,” Napoleon says into the heavy silence, and Illya doesn’t know if he’s talking about the men or the tremor or the whole goddamn disaster of a situation.

It doesn’t matter. He would storm out of his own room, but Napoleon is standing between him and the door, and he cannot bring himself to close the distance between them. In fact, what he desperately needs is far _more_ space between them, or else he’s going to put his fist through the wall of this hotel room.

“You need to go,” he says quietly, staring at the floor.

“Illya, wait—”

His name on Napoleon’s lips is far, far too much. It sends thorny tendrils snaking up around his heart to squeeze until he barely feels the blood welling up in his palm as his fingernails bite through his skin. “Please leave, Cowboy,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “Please.”

Napoleon hesitates, but then a moment later Illya hears his footsteps retreating and the door closing behind him. He does not look up to see him go, knows that even after everything, he could not bear the sight of him walking away.

Illya manages not to put his fist through the wall that night. He does not manage to leave all of the furniture in the room intact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not familiar with the Illya-at-an-orphanage backstory, it comes from an interview that Armie Hammer did during the press about the film in which he says Illya spent time at an orphanage and this is where he got the scar on his temple. For a lot more info about "Orphans of the State" and why Illya would have been sent away from his mother following his father's arrest, take a look at [this tumblr post](https://matriarchcomputer.tumblr.com/post/620420849264197632/i-saw-your-post-about-illya-being-in-an). Obviously my headcanon diverges from the author of that post's about whether Illya would have gone back to live with his mother at some point; I think it's possible, especially if she leveraged her "popularity" with various powerful men to get custody of him again.
> 
> Another note I just wanted to throw out: please do not judge Napoleon too harshly, and remember we're only seeing Illya's perspective on things. You'll hear from him a bit more in the final chapter, and *ahem* I may or may not already have started writing a short companion piece to this from Napoleon's POV on certain events.
> 
> As always, thanks so much for your comments and kudos; they really do mean so so much to me, especially for a fic like this which is a little "unusual" for this fandom.


	3. Chapter 3

_And I just won't stop ‘til my heart gives way_  
_And you and I are a long lost myth_  
_There's nothing very much that I wouldn't do_  
_To be the last of the men that you romanced with_

The next morning, Napoleon does not show up at breakfast. Illya tries not to let himself catastrophize when he comes down to the cafe they’ve been eating at the last few mornings, but that is a difficult thing to do, because Illya himself is late. There are plenty of reasons why his partner might not be there, but right now Illya can only think of one.

He takes a seat next to Gaby, who doesn’t look away from her magazine, and picks up a menu even though he already knows what is on it by now. A few moments later he sets the piece of paper back on the table and stares at Gaby until she finally looks up at him, peering over her sunglasses.

“Where is Cowboy?”

Gaby purses her lips at him, and for a second he thinks she’s not going to tell him, but then she sighs and takes a sip of her cappuccino. “He came down early and grabbed a croissant, then went back to his room. Said his wound was giving him trouble.”

“Is that all?” Illya cannot help but ask.

“Why? Should there be more?”

Now Illya wishes he hadn’t gotten rid of his menu, because he has nothing to hide behind anymore. “No,” he answers, not meeting her evaluating gaze.

“He found out, didn’t he?” she guesses correctly.

It’s not really that surprising that she guessed—he has pretty much ceased to be surprised by what Gaby knows, at this point—but he still finds himself asking, “How did you—?”

She waves him off and looks back down at her magazine, sipping her cappuccino again. “The both of you are acting weird. It stands to reason.” Illya doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. Eventually she glances back up at him, brow furrowed, and drags down her sunglasses to better look him in the eye. “It’ll be ok, Illya. It’s better that he knows now. No more secrets.”

“That’s not—” he starts, and suddenly he’s having flashbacks to the previous night. “You don’t understand.”

“Willing to bet that I do,” she says skeptically, her voice lilting as she tips her head.

“I’m in love with him, Gaby,” Illya blurts, against all his intentions. If she is surprised at this confession, she doesn’t show it. Instead she just gives him an encouraging look, and he finds himself saying even more that he never meant to. “All the others, it’s just… a way to ease the pain. Because I cannot be with him.”  
  
Gaby reaches out to take one of his hands in hers, turning it over and tracing a finger over the little moon-shaped scabs arcing across his palm. “I know, darling,” she says, incredibly, “but what I don’t know is why you think you can’t.”

Words fail him. What can he even say to something like that? There is no way that she does not understand all of the many reason why it is impossible. But she is still looking at him expectantly, like she is waiting for him to simply explain. “It’s— it’s dangerous. It would compromise us in the field,” he begins, practically. The practical reasons are the easiest, anyway, they don’t require him to actually think about the emotions that might actually choke him. “Things could go wrong. I could lose my friend. Lose this team. And I am still KGB. I could not be… _involved_ with an American. Especially not an American man.”

“Those are all just excuses, Illya,” Gaby says, heat in her voice now. “And if you think the both of you aren’t already compromised, you are kidding yourself. _Oah Scheiße_ , we are all compromised, all of us. But it doesn’t make us weaker. _Love_ doesn’t make you weaker, no matter what those bastards that tried to train it out of you said.”

It’s as if she knew exactly what he was going to say and had prepared her rebuttal, and hell, maybe she had. Illya is under no illusions about his own predictability in certain matters. Despite himself, he can feel a minute smile curling the corners of his mouth.

“It’s a nice speech, Chop Shop,” he replies ruefully. “But it does not matter if he does not feel the same.”

“And you’re so certain you know how he feels?”

Illya’s mouth opens then closes again. Of course he is certain. Napoleon is a lover of fine things, of beautiful women and men, of high culture and decadence and indulgence. Of all of the things that Illya is not. And furthermore, Napoleon is not know for his impulse control; he takes what he desires, almost without thinking about it. If he wanted Illya, Illya is pretty sure he would know.

He can’t bring himself to say any of this, though. “Yes,” is what comes out of his mouth instead. “He is not here, is he?”

Gaby frowns, her lips narrowing into a hard line as she stares at him. “What really happened last night, Illya?”

“Nothing,” he answers automatically. “He knows enough, and he has said nothing. He’s just trying to figure out a way to let me down easily.” Never mind that Illya had not given Napoleon the chance to say anything last night, that he had forced him out of the room without learning any reaction besides shock.

“Illya—”

“Forget it, ok?” Illya cuts her off, crossing his arms over his chest in a more defensive posture he should really be allowing himself to show. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does if you two can’t work together because you refuse to talk about it,” Gaby shoots back mercilessly. Like he hasn’t thought of the effect this will have on their partnership endlessly since last night.

“It won’t be a problem,” Illya mutters, not meeting her gaze, and hoping desperately that he is right.

* * *

“Absolutely not,” Illya says, his tone leaving little room for discussion. “You are still injured, and you were made by the dealers.”

“But not,” Napoleon interjects, “by the buyer. As far as he knows the deal is still on. This is our chance to find out who this guy is. He’s spooked, yeah, but I know can draw him out.”

Illya is not convinced. Or rather, he can see Napoleon’s point, and he does believe Napoleon could draw the buyer out, but he is certainly not convinced that they should try it. The fact that Napoleon did not address his point about his injury does not escape Illya’s notice. He should be resting, not going to meets with whatever villain is trying to buy high-grade weapons.

“He’s got a point,” Gaby adds, looking apologetically at Illya, who just glares at her.

“He is in no condition—”

“ _He_ is right here, you know,” Napoleon says acerbically with an unamused expression on his face. “I’ve worked through worse, and you know it.” There’s a beat in which he looks like he’s weighing his next words. “Do you trust me on this?”

Illya stops dead where he’s been pacing across the room and stares at his partner. The question is straightforward, and not: there are layers within it, additional unvoiced queries hidden away under a discussion of mission strategy. A simple matter of trust, which is the farthest thing from simple anymore.

“Of course I do,” Illya answers quietly. “But you know it is unnecessary. You said yourself, the buyer does not know you. I can go in your place.” Napoleon looks skeptical at this, which honestly Illya does not appreciate. “I think it is not my trust that is in question here.”

Napoleon is silent for a moment, lips pressed together slightly, before he seems to come to a decision. “Fine,” he agrees, sounding resigned and annoyed all at once. “But I’m monitoring the meet, and I _am_ coming in if anything sounds off.”

“Fine,” Illya says, his voice clipped.

They still have not talked about what happened that night.

They’re in the middle of a mission, after all, and it’s far too easy to fall back into their usual roles. To ignore Gaby’s pointed looks until she gives up, at least for now. To pretend like nothing has changed between them, when they both know that ultimately everything has. The tension hasn’t really gone away, though; instead it just lurks beneath the surface, making itself known in times like these.

And hopefully not making itself known at even less opportune times. Like, for instance, in the middle of a rather delicate and dangerous negotiation with a weapons buyer whose identity catches them completely off-guard.

The meet is set to go down in Pireas, at a warehouse not far from the water’s edge. Illya arrives with the crates that UNCLE seized at the original, failed exchange, now emptied of the actual weapons save a few to hopefully sell their authenticity, and several well-placed trackers and bugs. Napoleon has taken his place in a van nearby, listening to Illya’s bug through one ear and Gaby’s radio connection through the other. She’d gone to rendezvous with local authorities in the hopes that they would be able to roll up the buyer once Illya has drawn him out and gotten the proof they need.

They have no reason to expect that the buyer is anyone else than a local crime boss, someone trying to improve their standing in the region and make a move to the big leagues. Nothing in their intel to this point has suggested anything more, or any connection to their ongoing cat-and-mouse game with the much larger and more dangerous criminal organization they’ve been tracking for almost half a year. So when Illya immediately recognizes the man who walks into the warehouse wearing an expensive suit, it comes as a complete shock. For both of them, apparently.

“Well, well, _this_ is certainly unexpected,” Adam Martinez intones when he catches sight of Illya standing next to the crates, cocking one perfect eyebrow at him. “Not that I’m not pleased to see you. That was an exceedingly memorable night.”

“Martinez,” Illya replies, trying desperately to keep his discomfort out of his voice. Of all the people to show up, he was perhaps the last person Illya would have wanted. Especially with Napoleon listening in on the whole exchange. “Well, it is—how do you say—a small world.”

Martinez grins broadly, and there is something vaguely predatory in the expression. He wanders almost aimlessly across the warehouse, unhurried, until he’s standing close enough that Illya can smell his cologne. “Lucky me,” he murmurs, face inches from Illya’s. Then he meanders away again, eyeing the weapons crates with almost as much appreciation as he eyed Illya’s body with. “Have you worked with Costas long?”

“Not too long,” Illya answers with a shrug. He knows better than to imply anything more and risk getting caught in a lie. “I go where there is work.”

“Surprising that he trusted you with such an important deal.”

“Maybe it is not so important for him,” Illya suggests, hoping it is the right tack to take.

Martinez looks surprised at this suggestion for a moment, and then he grins again, like Illya had made a joke. “You’re funny. Or maybe just stupid. Doesn’t really matter, when you have a cock like that,” he adds offhand, and Illya has to keep himself from choking. “Look, Costas might not know me, but he certainly knows my new employers, and he is not stupid enough to send a mercenary alone to a deal like this.”

“He knows that _someone_ tipped off law enforcement at the last meeting, and it was not his men. Most of them were arrested. He has few options. And so,” Illya says, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of _here I am_.

“Very well,” Martinez allows, still looking at Illya in a way that is more than a little disconcerting.

Illya can’t quite tell if Martinez believes his cover story; in fact, he’s rapidly getting more suspicious that he’s been made, but at the same time he can’t afford to scuttle the deal if Martinez has actually bought it. He tries not to tense up too much when Martinez approaches him again and one of his thugs takes a position at his rear, rather too close for comfort.

“Maybe when this deal is done, we can have a little celebration,” he says, voice low, though Illya has little doubt that the bug picks it up. One of Illya’s hands rests on a crate and Martinez covers it with his own. “Another unforgettable night, perhaps?”

Illya allows the corner of his mouth to turn up in what he hopes is an inviting way, even though he wants to recoil in disgust. At himself, at Martinez—he’s not quite sure. “Perhaps,” he makes himself say.

“You know,” Martinez says, stepping even closer, “after that night, it was the oddest thing. I never could find my contacts book again. Practically tore apart that hotel room. Isn’t that peculiar?”

Cold, bitter ice forms low in Illya’s stomach then, because even if he hasn’t truly made Illya, Martinez knows something is wrong. There is a slim chance he might be able to save this, but it is rapidly spinning out of his control, which is a dire prospect with eight armed men in the warehouse. “I don’t—” he starts.

He doesn’t get to finish that statement. Martinez grabs his hand and wrenches it behind his back, and the unexpected attack throws him off balance enough to allow the other man to slam his head down into the edge of the crate. Stars burst in his vision and his knees buckle; it’s only a moment, but it’s enough that the thug behind him can overwhelm him. They drag him over to rickety chair and bind his wrists and ankles to it while he’s still dazed by the blow.

“Have a seat, will you?” Martinez says, like Illya has any choice in the matter. “Just while we work out the details of the transaction.”

“This will not go well for you,” Illya growls.

Martinez laughs at him. “Don’t worry, if this all checks out I’ll make it worth your while.”

“If you think I’m going to do anything with you after _this_ —”

“No?” Martinez jumps in before he can finish. “Too bad. Though, in fact, I meant monetarily; I’ll see to it you get a handsome bonus for your troubles.”

It is apparent that, at the very least, Martinez is still unsure of Illya’s loyalties, which is promising. He knows, though, that the crates won’t hold up to very thorough inspection, and it seems like Martinez is jumpy enough about this deal to insist on one. When he next turns away, Illya subtly tests his bonds; they hold tight, but the chair itself creaks in a satisfying way. It could be broken easily enough, and then there is only the matter of the thugs.

Of course, the other issue is that Napoleon will have heard everything that has transpired so far, and Illya has no doubts that he will show shortly. He wishes, somewhat desperately, that he could somehow keep Napoleon from coming, but he knows it’s futile. Any message he might send will certainly be roundly ignored by his partner, who had, after all, promised he would be going in if anything sounded “off.” Illya is certain the sound of his head hitting the wood of the crate fell under that umbrella, even though in actuality the blow hadn’t been that bad.

Sure enough, it’s only moments later when he hears the soft, muffled pop of a silenced pistol from a darkened, cluttered corner of the warehouse. Even he hadn’t noticed Napoleon’s entrance, and their targets remain utterly oblivious. The first thug that drops elicits confusion among them; the second, dawning realization. By the time the third hits the floor outrage has taken over, and Illya has a gun pressed to his temple before he can even think of trying to break out of the chair.

“That’s enough of _that_ ,” Martinez says testily. He is, in fact, the one holding the gun this time, which surprises Illya; then again, much of what had transpired today has come as an utter shock. “I don’t know what your association is with my friend here, but I suggest you kick out your gun and come out with your hands up if you value his life.”

There is a pause, and then Napoleon’s voice echoes out through the space. “He’s not your friend.”

“No, I suppose not,” Martinez allows. “I’m guessing he might be yours, though. I mean, he must mean something to you, to come on this little suicide mission; by my reckoning there is only one of you and I still have five men. So,” he pauses, then cocks the pistol. The sound is like a shot itself in the deathly silence of the warehouse. “What will it be?”

A few seconds later, Napoleon’s gun comes skittering out across the concrete floor.

“Cowboy, don’t,” Illya growls. “Just… leave me.” Maybe he still has another gun. Maybe he has some plan besides giving himself up, which is the worst thing he could do right now. There is a decent chance that Martinez is bluffing, that he wouldn’t kill Illya, and Napoleon has to know that—

But then Napoleon emerges from the shadows, hands raised up by his shoulders in a posture of surrender, and Illya’s heart plummets into his stomach. “No can do, Peril,” he mutters.

“What the—?” Martinez yelps, his eyes widening slightly as he looks from Illya to Napoleon and back again. “Care to explain?”

“Not really,” Illya answers, just managing to keep from grimacing.

A disquieting smile slides onto Martinez’s lips at that, and he leers at Illya. “Shame. You’d really make my day if you told me that ever since that night you’ve been collecting lookalikes, hoping to find one that compares to the original. How did you get this one to follow you around like a puppy? No wait, let me guess—”

“I _am_ the original, jackass,” Napoleon interrupts dryly, and Illya can't quite suppress a wince at that. Napoleon isn't wrong, but hearing it put so plainly, under the current circumstances, is not easy. “We're partners,” he mutters, moving forward when Martinez’s men prod him with the ends of their rifles. “And tell your thugs to lay off already.”

Martinez elects to do no such thing. “Well, I have to admit, this is fascinating,” he replies instead, his eyebrows arcing skyward. “I’m really sorry I won't be able to stick around for all the juicy details.” Then, apparently satisfied with Napoleon’s surrender, he finally pulls the gun from Illya’s head and gives a sharp nod to his men. “Hurry up and get him tied up, will you? We need to check the crates and get out of here. I’m willing to bet we won’t be alone for long.”

The thugs shove Napoleon hard into a chair that doesn’t creak like Illya’s does. His partner collapses in a rather more haphazard fashion than seems necessary, until Illya sees him use the position to reach for his ankle holster. As the two thugs bend down to bind him he takes the opportunity to surge forward, knocking bodily into one of them as he goes. Unfortunately the man manages to snag hold of him, using Napoleon’s momentum to swing him around, and the shot he fires goes wild. He gets another off and it finds a home in the thigh of the second thug, but then Napoleon is being slammed to the ground, curling in on himself as heavy boots unerringly find the fresh wound on his chest.

In the end it was a nice try, but probably not a good move, because now Martinez is circling back around the chair that Napoleon has been shoved into, his wrists bound tight enough that Illya can see the ropes digging into the flesh. Gleeful cruelty glints in his eyes, and not for the first time Illya wonders where this Adam Martinez came from, and how UNCLE had missed his turn from hapless pawn to key player. He pauses in front of Napoleon’s chair, drawing his pistol again, and slams the butt of the gun into Napoleon’s cheek.

“That was for that little stunt,” Martinez sneers. “And this…” He cocks the pistol, pointing the barrel right into Napoleon’s defiant glare.

“Martinez, stop!” The words are torn out of Illya before he can hold them back, and he has to stop himself from shattering the chair underneath him right then and there.

Their captor seemingly ignores this outburst, though, his gaze still fixed on Napoleon as he pivots the gun toward Illya and fires without looking. Some luck must remain on their side, because the bullet goes wide, grazing the outside of Illya’s arm instead of finding a home somewhere more deadly. Illya does not miss the way Napoleon’s combative façade cracks when he flinches at the shot, and neither does Martinez.

“Try it again and I don’t miss,” their captor drawls, tucking the gun away again. “I doubt I’ll need both of you.”

“Your employer would disagree,” Napoleon puts in hastily. “Do you want to take that risk?”  
  
Martinez tips his head, considering this for a moment before he speaks. “I know you’re just trying to save your lives, but you might have a point. I suppose I’ll just have to settle for maiming him horribly, then?” With that, he turns away from them, chuckling, and walks off toward the crates.

“You ok, Peril?” Napoleon whispers to him, once Martinez is out of earshot.

Out of the corner of his eye, Illya can see Napoleon’s gaze fall to the gunshot wound, and he shrugs. “Just a scratch,” he mutters back. The bleeding has already slowed.

They fall into silence again, evaluating the situation. Five thugs, one injured, plus Martinez. There are five crates supposedly full of weapons, and he clearly wants to inspect them as quickly as possible, so he leaves no one watching Napoleon and Illya. Finally, a bit of a break.

“That’s Martinez?” Napoleon says under his breath as both of them watch the man in question call for a crowbar. Illya nods. “I thought you said he was a nobody?”

“He _was_ ,” Illya hisses, glowering across the cavernous space. “I will have words with Waverly when we get out of here.” He tests the chair again and hears it creak softly; apparently, Napoleon hears it as well.

“Peril, what are you planning?” he asks, trepidation in his voice.

Illya waits until just the right moment and then flexes his uninjured arm, hiding the sharp crack of the chair’s wood in the noise of the crates being opened. None of their captors seem to notice. “Getting us out of here, Cowboy.”

“Illya, wait—” his partner hisses, but Illya doesn’t have time for second-guessing. The men are distracted now, and he is not going to miss his chance.

It takes almost no effort to render the rest of the chair into kindling around him, and then the warehouse erupts into chaos.

* * *

There is little like the disorientation of waking after you’ve been knocked out. This time he wakes with a start, panic surging through his body as he tries to take in his surroundings. The cold concrete floor, dim light, and dank odor point to some kind of cell, which is perhaps not surprising. But there is also a warm body cradling his head and shoulders, and a heavy, steadying hand pressed over his heart, and soft, soothing words murmured by a familiar voice.

“Hey, hey, Peril, it’s ok. I’ve got you. Just take it easy, ok?”

Napoleon’s face swims into view, blue eyes full of unconcealed worry. He’s also sporting a mottled bruise over one cheekbone and one of his nostrils is rimmed with blood, but he still looks better than Illya feels at the moment.

“Cowboy,” Illya coughs as he reaches up to grab onto one of Napoleon’s wrists, “are you hurt?”

Napoleon laughs at that, which Illya takes as a good sign. “Not really, no. Might have popped a stitch or two, I think, but I’m ok.”

“What happened?”

“You remember breaking the chair?” Napoleon asks, smirking slightly. “And trying to fight off five thugs by yourself instead of getting me free too?”

Illya frowns. “I could not do everything at once, Cowboy. But yes, I remember.”

“Well, one of them grabbed the crowbar and smashed you over the head. You dropped like a rock—which was fucking _terrifying_ , I’ll have you know, I’m pretty sure my heart stopped for several seconds—and then Martinez apparently had enough of us, because he threw us in here, muttering something about having other things to take care of.”

“How long?” Illya asks. The longer he was out, the worse the inevitable concussion is, not to mention the more likely it is that they will lose the chance to link Martinez with the weapons deal.

Napoleon shakes his head. “Not very. Maybe a half hour.”

“And you haven’t picked the lock on the door yet?” Illya teases, letting the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

“Hey!” Napoleon retorts, looking supremely offended. “What was I gonna do with your unconscious ass? Also there’s no way to reach the lock from inside here.”

“Hmph,” Illya hums, his smirk deepening. “Excuses.”

Napoleon can only manage an exasperated laugh at this answer, shaking his head again. His thumb is currently tracing little circles over the shell of Illya’s ear, so absently that Illya doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it, and it makes something clench in Illya’s chest. His own hand tightens over Napoleon’s other wrist where his hand still rests on Illya’s chest.

“If you could have gotten out, you should have left me, you know,” he says. The thumb stops its rhythmic movement as Napoleon opens his mouth immediately to protest, but Illya doesn’t let him speak. “It is more important to finish the mission. To call for extraction.”

Napoleon is silent for a moment, then, and when he speaks again his voice is low and brittle. “You know I could never leave you.”

Illya knows. Deep down, he always knew, even if he never let himself believe it. Napoleon proved it that night at the Vinciguerra shipping compound when he sank a truck into the harbor instead of driving it off and leaving Illya to drown. Just like Illya could not leave Napoleon to Rudi even though he had no directive to save him. Gaby was right; they’ve never not been compromised.

“Do you remember those weeks where I was recovering from the broken ankle?” Napoleon asks quietly. Now he is threading his fingers gently through Illya’s hair, sending little frissons of pleasure shooting down his spine, and Illya doesn’t dare show any sign that he’s noticed, for fear that his partner might stop.

“Of course I do, Cowboy,” he answers, staring up into ocean blue eyes.

Napoleon’s throat bobs as he swallows. “This is going to sound stupid, but I think that’s the happiest I’ve ever been. Those days we spent together.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Illya murmurs, barely above a whisper. “But then why…?” He trails off, unable to put voice to the questions. Why didn’t Napoleon ever say something? Why did he run off to sleep with someone else as soon as he was able?

Napoleon hears them anyway. His face crumples, myriad furrows lining his brow, and he closes his eyes for a moment. “Because those days were also some of the most painful of my life. You’d come by after work with groceries and take care of me, being such a good friend, and fuck, I wanted it so badly to be more. For all of it to be _real_. But I knew it could never be. I knew who you were, and who I was, and I _knew_ that it was impossible. Thought I knew, I guess.”

“It was real,” Illya says. He reaches up to take Napoleon’s hand, pulling it down to press his fingers to his lips. The action draws a lopsided, unmistakably smitten smile onto Napoleon’s face, and the sight of it makes Illya’s heart swell and ache at the same time. How long might he have been getting these looks from Napoleon, if only he’d been braver? If only they both had been?

“We make quite the pair, don’t we?” Napoleon sighs, seemingly echoing his thoughts. “You know, Peril, a lot of this could have been avoided if you weren’t such an exceptional spy. Too good at hiding things.”

There is a teasing sparkle in his eyes, and it makes Illya huff out a laugh despite everything. “Do not put this on me, Cowboy. You’re the one who can’t ever resist taking things you want. Except this.”

Napoleon’s head dips at that, his expression sobering, and immediately Illya wants to take it back. Anything to put that smile back onto Napoleon’s face; Napoleon should always be smiling, he thinks. Which is an absurd thought, given their line of work, but he thinks it anyway.

“Some things are too important to steal,” Napoleon says, his voice thick, trailing his fingers over Illya’s cheek. “Some things have to be freely given. Some things have to be earned.”

That is not something Illya can just take lying down. He moves to push himself into a sitting position, struggling slightly to get his hands under him, and this elicits a surprised noise of protest from Napoleon.

“Peril, what are you doing?” he scolds. He’s got one hand on Illya’s chest and the other behind his shoulder, like he can’t quite decide whether he wants to try to hold Illya down or help him up. “You shouldn’t be moving.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Illya insists, even as he can’t quite stop from wincing against the throb in his skull. “It’s not bad. I will need to get up sooner or later.”

Napoleon scoffs at him, but now that it’s clear Illya is going to sit up no matter what, his hands slide under Illya’s arms to offer support. “But it doesn’t have to be _now_ ,” he huffs.

“Yes, now,” Illya grits out, and if he allows himself to collapse into Napoleon’s arms when the room spins around him a bit, well, no one could blame him.

Napoleon is still _tsk_ ing him disapprovingly, but all Illya can pay attention to is the heat of Napoleon's hands searing through the thin fabric of his shirt, the overwhelming scent of his pomade and cologne, and how very close their faces are now. The latter fact seems to dawn on Napoleon as well, because abruptly whatever objections he’d been voicing trail away, leaving his mouth hanging slightly open. There is unfiltered desire in his eyes as he stares hungrily at Illya, and his grip tightens where his hand sits on Illya’s waist.

“Napoleon,” Illya breathes, lifting one hand to gently cup his partner’s cheek and smoothing his thumb across the fine stubble there. “Just kiss me already.”  
  
Napoleon does not need to be told twice. He surges forward across the remaining gap between them, pressing his lips to Illya’s in an enthusiastic, open-mouthed kiss. It’s messy and a little desperate, with maybe too much tongue and teeth, and Illya’s head is still pounding, but it is perfect nonetheless. Illya’s fingers curl into Napoleon’s hair, reveling in the feel of the soft strands, pulling him ever closer even when there is already only scant space between them.

All these months, Illya had no illusions about what was missing from his numerous trysts. But knowing _exactly_ what it was in no way prepared him for what it would feel like to actually have Napoleon in his arms. Napoleon’s touch lights up his every nerve ending, seemingly scouring away years of calluses built up around his heart, leaving him raw and exposed and aching for more.

It is only the throbbing in his head and the reality of their current situation that makes him finally break out of the kiss. Napoleon actually whines at this interruption, and the sound makes Illya want to laugh and devour him all at once. He settles for pressing his face into the crook of Napoleon’s neck, letting strong arms tighten around him as he catches his breath. After a few more moments he pulls back just enough to look into Napoleon’s eyes, and the naked emotion he sees there makes his breath catch in his throat.

“So what do we do now?” he asks, trying to focus on something practical, because as wonderful as all of this is, they are still captive.

“Well, the cavalry should be here at any moment, I expect,” Napoleon answers, quirking an eyebrow.  
  
Illya blinks at him. “What?”

“Gaby and the authorities,” Napoleon says matter-of-factly, an amused smile playing on his lips. “Did you really think I would go in after you without giving her a heads up?” He lifts one arm off of Illya’s back to glance at his watch before letting it fall back to its original place. “I’d guess that they’ve already wrapped up Martinez and the rest of his crew by now. The weapons we left in the crates were certainly enough for criminal charges, after all.”

“You didn’t think to mention this earlier?” Illya asks incredulously.

“I tried to, Peril, before your heroic and daring escape, but you weren’t hearing it.”

“I—” Illya starts, a protest on the tip of his tongue, but then shakes his head, feeling more than a little sheepish. “Sorry, Cowboy.”

“It’s fine. We’re both ok, more or less,” Napoleon says. A wry smile twists its way onto his lips. “But if you had gotten yourself killed before we could work out whatever this is between us, I was going to be very angry with you.”

Illya huffs a laugh at that. “Oh, so now it’s ok if I go get myself killed?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Napoleon retorts. “I’m not sure that one kiss counts as ‘working it out’ anyway—”

Illya kisses him again, because what other answer is there to that? Well, maybe there is something else. The words bubble to the surface before he can stop them, and right now he doesn’t think he wants to anyway. Blame the head injury.

“I love you, Cowboy,” he says softly. “What else is there to work out?”

It is Napoleon’s turn to blink at him, looking rather stunned for a moment. “Oh. Well, then. I guess not much,” he says a little weakly, swallowing hard. Then the shock seems to pass and he comes back to himself. “Still doesn’t mean you can go off to get yourself killed.”

“And why is that?”

Napoleon rolls his eyes, but he’s not even trying to hide the utterly euphoric grin on his face. “Because I love you too, you great lummox. Happy now?”  
  
“Yes,” Illya answers, feeling a matching smile stretching his lips. “I am happy.”

* * *

Gaby finds them still wrapped in each others arms on the floor of the cell and smiles smugly before stepping aside to let the medics in. Napoleon did in fact pop a few stitches and Illya is at least mildly concussed, but on the whole they aren’t in two bad of shape, considering.

“You should avoid, er, strenuous activity, for a few days,” one of the medics tells them, looking at them askance. They’d pulled apart, but barely, and the advice makes Illya flush hotly despite himself.

Napoleon just grins. “What, exactly, would you consider strenuous, because—” he starts, to Illya’s horror, but he doesn’t get to finish.

“That’s enough of that,” Gaby interrupts, giving them a Look that unmistakably says, _I may be happy about this but I don’t want to hear about it._

“Gaby, my dear, I was only going to bring up the practicalities of our jobs,” Napoleon shoots back, doing his best to look offended.

“Right, well, I’m insisting Waverly give us some leave after this one, so you don’t have to worry.”

“And that is why you are a wonder,” Napoleon says as he pushes himself to his feet, then leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Among other things. Have any trouble finding us?”  
  
Gaby can’t quite hold back her smile, though Illya can tell that she is trying. “Not at all. Come on then, let’s get out of this miserable place and go call in to let Waverly know what’s happened.”

Their boss does, at least, sound apologetic when they tell him about Martinez. “Yes, I’m afraid that’s on us,” comes his voice from over the speakerphone. “A few weeks ago he slipped off our usual surveillance channels, and to be perfectly honest with you he’d been so boring before then that we didn’t pursue him. Very sorry about that.”

“And our flight back to New York?” Napoleon asks.

“About that,” Waverly says. Illya has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, because of course they aren’t actually getting any leave. But then Waverly surprises him. “Well, you are in Pireas already, and they tell me the weather is rather lovely in the Cyclades this time of year. Take a ferry to whatever island suits your fancy, relax on the beach, and we’ll see you back at HQ in, let’s say, two weeks?”

Illya has never been much for the beach, or relaxing for that matter, but the idea of Napoleon in a swimsuit makes his mouth go dry and he thinks that maybe, in this case, he could make an exception. Napoleon is beaming at him with such unconcealed adoration that he can hardly believe that it is real, but then his hand is curling around Illya’s in a wordless promise, and Illya feels the last of the suffocating bindings he called self-control finally falling away. And, astoundingly, for the first time, the loss of that “control” isn’t frightening, but freeing.

There are, after all, a lot of things he hasn’t allowed himself in a very long time, and he has quite a bit of catching up to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading, and thank you again for all your comments and kudos. Whether you've left a comment before or not, I would love to hear what you thought of the conclusion!
> 
> I think I've about hit my quotient for Illya angst for a little while, although I won't say I'm maxed out on angst in general. I can now tell you that the companion piece to this will be a fic about the time Napoleon was recovering from the broken ankle, but from Napoleon's perspective, so that one will be plenty angsty. BUT I also have several ridiculous fluffy things coming too. Just can't stop writing for these two!


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